


Infelix Ego

by la_topolina



Series: The Unstoppable Force/Immovable Object Continuity [15]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Family Drama, Family Feels, Fluff, Forgiveness, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23583892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_topolina/pseuds/la_topolina
Summary: There is only one obstacle preventing Neville from keeping his promise to Mairi the ghost.Unfortunately, that obstacle is his Grandmother.
Relationships: Alice Longbottom & Frank Longbottom & Neville Longbottom, Alice Longbottom & Neville Longbottom, Alice Longbottom/Frank Longbottom, Augusta Longbottom & Neville Longbottom
Series: The Unstoppable Force/Immovable Object Continuity [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1745833
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	1. Where Shall I Go?

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Abby/Chemical_Pixie for requesting this story; and to Vicki/Oregonian for giving Mairi (un)life.
> 
> The action takes place in the summer of 1995.

There are two kinds of people in the world—those who like to talk during breakfast, and those for whom breakfast is a sacred hour of silence, most properly used to compose oneself to meet the day at hand. While Neville Longbottom fell into the latter camp, his Grandmother Augusta, unfortunately, was staunchly in the former. It was Neville’s lot in life to be unlucky and disappointed in most things, and every morning he would start his day afresh, hoping for peace at last to descend on the breakfast table. Things had marginally improved upon his matriculation at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. He was unpopular enough there that he found it easy to spend his morning meal engrossed in his book. At home though, he still had to face an ante meridiem tussle with Gran, as he attempted to read and she attempted to talk, and he inevitably spilled porridge on his book, causing her to sniff and point out that this is exactly why civilized people do not read at mealtime.  
  
One morning in late July, Neville was bent over his battered copy of Chretien de Troyes’s romance _St Mungo, the Knight Pilgrim_ , while Gran pontificated about the sad state of her herb garden and all the trouble the gnomes were making in it. They usually occupied this uncomfortable armistice in which he read and pretended to listen, while she talked and pretended not to notice his reading. This uneasy truce was nearly shattered when she startled him by raising her voice to capture his attention.  
  
“Neville, are you listening to me?” she asked sharply.  
  
“Yes, Gran,” Neville replied, spilling half of his porridge on the parchment pages and yanking his book away hastily.  
  
“Don’t lie to me, young man, and get that book away from the table before you ruin it completely.” She flicked her wand to vanish the mess, and Neville slipped it onto his lap.  
  
“I’m not lying. You were saying that the gnomes are out of control.”  
  
She gave him one of those searching looks that he dreaded, but did not pursue the argument further. “We’ll be spending next week in London for your birthday, you’ll like that, won’t you?”  
  
The mention of his birthday set Neville’s heart pounding and turned his hands cold; but neither of these responses were due to excitement. He hastily shoveled more of his porridge into his mouth, and his eyes started to water from the searing heat of the mush.  
  
“Well what is it now? You don’t want to go to London?” she demanded. Sometimes Neville swore his Gran was a Legillimens, despite her constant protestations to the contrary.  
  
He swallowed hard and slurped down some of the cold milk to soothe the burn. When he dared to return his Gran’s probing gaze, he knew it was now—or never.  
  
“It’s not that I don’t want to go to London,” he began.  
  
“I should hope you want to go to London,” she interrupted. “We’re going to see Frank and Alice on Sunday. I should _hope_ you want to see your parents.”  
  
“I do!” He finished his milk and wiped his lip with the back of his hand, cringing when his Gran tsked in disgust. “The thing is, I was thinking we could go somewhere else for my birthday this year.”  
  
“You were?” she asked suspiciously. “Where?”  
  
“Walsingham. It’s in Norfolk.”  
  
“I know where Walsingham is. But why in Circe’s name would you want to go there? Better that we stay in London. There’s a good amount of shopping to do, and I’ve been meaning to drop in on…”  
  
“The thing is, I have to go,” he blurted.  
  
“What do you mean, you have to go?”  
  
He started to fidget with the book on his knee, until he dropped it on the floor and had to stoop down to retrieve it.   
  
“I made a promise to Mairi,” he said from under the table.  
  
“Who is this Mairi? I’m sure your little friend can wait…”  
  
“You don’t understand!” He sat up too quickly and felt his head swim.  
  
Augusta sniffed and folded her hands primly. “Then do explain.”  
  
“I’m…not really sure where to start.”  
  
“The beginning is generally a good place.”  
  
“The beginning. I think it started after detention one night. I was going back to the Tower…”  
  
“What detention was this?” she snapped.  
  
“You know about it! It was the one last October when I failed that potions quiz.”  
  
“You need to apply yourself in potions, young man.”  
  
“I know, Gran.” This was going to take all day if she kept interrupting him. Why was it so hard to get Gran to listen?  
  
“Professor Snape is a hard teacher, but I would venture to say that you young pups need a firm hand.”  
  
“Gran, I…”  
  
“I don’t want to hear it if you’re going to be complaining about him again.” She began adding cubes of sugar to her teacup so firmly that the tea splashed over the rim. “Do you suppose that Molly’s children go on whining about Professor Snape?”  
  
“Actually, yes I do,” he muttered. She wasn’t listening. Again.  
  
“Exactly, they don’t! And furthermore…”  
  
“Gran!” he shouted, his frustration finally overcoming his nerves.  
  
She blinked in surprise. “What?”  
  
“Do you want me to tell you what happened or not?” Feeling angry somehow felt so much better than feeling afraid.  
  
“Why, of course I do. Isn’t that what you’re doing?”  
  
“I’m trying, but I can’t get anywhere if you don’t let me talk.”  
  
She drew herself up indignantly, and he braced himself for another tirade. “Very well, child,” she said through her teeth. “You talk, and I’ll listen.”  
  
“Thanks.” He paused, and she kept her lips pursed deliberately shut. “So, I was walking up to the Tower, and I got lost somewhere. I wound up spiraling up and up, until I wound up in a room I’d never seen before.”  
  
“Easy to do in that castle,” she allowed.  
  
“Yeah. It is. It was a little chapel of sorts.”  
  
“What kind of chapel?”  
  
“I don’t know.” He was beginning to lose his train of thought.  
  
“I suppose it doesn’t matter.”  
  
“Gran!”  
  
“Well, go on if you’re going to tell me.”  
  
He sighed and tried to gather his courage. “I was trying to find my way back out of the room, because the door had gone missing, and when I turned around I saw a ghost.”  
  
“I’m not surprised. And?”  
  
“And it was a Muggle ghost.”  
  
“Really? I didn’t know there were any Muggle ghosts at Hogwarts.” She was beginning to look interested.  
  
“I didn’t either. Her name is Mairi, and they hanged her for a witch, but she isn’t one. She’s nice to everybody though; she even reads bedtime stories to Peeves.”  
  
“You don’t say. That calls into question her judgement. That creature was a menace even in my day.”  
  
“He’s not so bad when Mairi’s around.” Neville put his book back on the table, safely out of porridge range, and his fingers nervously traced the fleur-des-lis pattern embossed on the cover. “Anyway, she was very nice to me, and when she heard about my troubles with Potions, she said she could help me learn if I came to visit her. I wasn’t sure what she could do to help, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to try. I couldn’t very well get any worse at Potions.”  
  
She frowned darkly. “Now see here, Neville. The reason you do poorly at Potions is because you aren’t working hard enough.”  
  
“Actually, I think it’s more because Professor Snape makes me so nervous I can’t think,” he said to his porridge bowl.  
  
Augusta bristled at being contradicted, but mercifully let it pass. “Am I to understand that your improvement in Potions this year was due to this Muggle ghost?”  
  
“Yes. I never would have passed my final test without her help.” Neville decided not to elaborate all of the help that Mairi and Peeves had given him during that final test, guessing that his Gran might not find it nearly as amusing as he did.  
  
“That was very decent of her. I don’t suppose there is anything we can do to show our appreciation.”  
  
“Well, that’s just it—there is.”  
  
“Oh? What does she want? A bit of dirt from her grave or some-such?”  
  
“Not exactly. She wants me to go on pilgrimage for her.”  
  
“She wants you to what?” Gran was genuinely surprised—and he knew she hated surprises.  
  
“A pilgrimage. It’s where you go to a holy site and pray.”  
  
“Yes, yes, I know what a pilgrimage is,” she said impatiently. “But why in the world would she ask you to do such a foolish thing?”  
  
“She’s tired of being in this world and she wants to cross over so she can be with her husband and her children. And God. She thinks that if I go on this pilgrimage for her, and say some prayers for her soul, then she’ll be free to do that.”  
  
Gran’s disapproval was painted plainly on her place, and it strongly resembled the vulture that perched on top of her best hat.  
  
“And this is why you want to go to Walsingham?”  
  
“Yes. There’s a church there called Our Lady of Walsingham, and that’s where Mairi asked me to go.”  
  
“And I suppose you promised?”  
  
“I did,” Neville said firmly. “She helped me so much, and she didn’t have to.”  
  
Gran nodded distractedly. “I suppose that Walsingham is within Apparating distance. It would only take a hour or so to make the trip and for you to say what you need to say.”  
  
“It’s not quite that simple, I’m afraid.”  
  
“No? Why on earth not?” Gran could not have looked more exasperated if she’d tried.  
  
“Well, I’ll have to walk is the thing,” Neville said quietly.  
  
“Walk! What do you mean walk!”  
  
“That’s how you make a pilgrimage.”  
  
“It’s a hundred miles from London! I’ll hear no more of this nonsense. We’ll go the normal way, or we won’t go at all.”  
  
Neville recognized this tone in his grandmother’s voice—the one which meant that there was no use in arguing further. And while it would normally have made him slump his shoulders and mutter a ‘Yes, Gran’ this time he couldn’t give in to that temptation.  
  
“What if we camped along the way?” he said nervously.  
  
“Camped?”  
  
“Yes. You didn’t mind camping for the Quidditch World Cup. And you’re always saying I should spend more time outdoors. We could camp, and walk, and it might be fun.”  
  
Augusta frowned, but she was obviously wavering, as her dark eyes darted from her food to her grandson’s face. Neville tried to keep his expression determined but not disrespectful.  
  
“Is it really that important to you?”  
  
“It is.” Neville nodded emphatically. “There’s no way I would have passed potions without Mairi’s help, and I promised her that I’d do this for her. I just want to do the right thing.”  
  
Gran was quiet for a long time. “You should be careful what you promise to people,” she said slowly. “But seeing as you’ve already made the promise, I suppose you’d best keep it. We can’t have it said that a Longbottom broke his word.”  
  
Neville blinked. He hadn’t expected it to be this easy. “Really?”  
  
“Are you questioning me?”  
  
“No! No, thank you Gran.”  
  
“But we’re still going down to London first to see dear Frank and Alice.”  
  
Neville could care less about their starting point—as long as their destination was assured. “That’s fine! Then we can stop at St. Matilda’s before we go. Percy says that Father Peter knows all about us and he can give us a blessing.”  
  
“I beg your pardon?” Gran was looking sour again.  
  
“A sending off. For luck,” he explained, trying to make it sound like the sort of thing normal people did every day.  
  
“We’re not Catholic.”  
  
“I don’t think that matters. Percy says that Catholics will bless anything that will sit still long enough—and many things that won’t.”  
  
She shook her head, bewildered. “Seeing as it is for your birthday, I suppose we can humor you this once. I don’t think you realize how much trouble this will be to arrange.”  
  
“I don’t mean to cause trouble.”  
  
“Of course you don’t. Children never do.” She finished her tea and started sending the dishes into the sink with agitated wand flicks. “But never mind that. A promise is a promise.”  
  
“Thank you, Gran,” Neville said, gathering his book and ducking out of the kitchen into the safety of the summer morning.  
  
“Don’t forget the de-gnoming! If we’re going to be gone for a week, I don’t want those pests setting up shop in the peonies.”  
  
“Yes, Gran!”  
  
He tucked his book into his pocket, and went out to the shed to gather the de-gnoming tongs, feeling that, for once in his life, things were going his way.  
  
If only he could trust the unusual turn of events to continue thus.


	2. Who will have pity on me?

Neville wished that, just once, his grandmother would leave the vulture-trimmed hat at home when they went to St Mungo’s. He was well aware that the confection had been considered quite smashing half a century earlier when his grandmother had caught his grandfather’s eye (probably by catching said eye rather literally with an errant avian wing), but now it was sadly out of date, and tending towards the shabby side. Gran, however, was not to be moved. She insisted that this was her best hat, and she _would_ wear her best hat when she went out, so help her God. Neville had never cared for the infamous chapeau (it liked to sneer at him); and after seeing the boggart-Snape dressed in Gran’s clothing—well it was very difficult for Neville to keep from laughing when he saw her styled thus. He was not sure if his laughter was more likely to hurt her feelings, or to raise her wrath, and he had no desire to find out.  
  
The Janus Thickey Ward was quiet on Sunday morning when they arrived to visit Alice and Frank Longbottom. It was always quiet, that is, unless someone was screaming. The bright lighting and the hushed tones made Neville’s skin crawl, and his eyes dropped to the floor where he busied his mind by attempting to avoid stepping on the cracks between the tiles. He’d done this ever since he could remember, and as his feet grew along with the rest of him, he found it harder and harder to complete the task successfully.  
  
“Good morning Mrs Longbottom. Good morning Neville,” chirped Healer Mnemosyne Vale. She was a small slip of a woman, ever patient and ever cheerful. If Neville couldn’t have his parents at home with him, he was glad to know that they were in this good woman’s care.  
  
“Good morning Healer Vale,” Gran replied, puffing up and taking charge of the room, as always. “How are dear Frank and Alice today?”  
  
“Very well! They ate all their breakfasts and took their walk. Alice even pointed out a little bluebird on the fountain. I’m sure they’ll be delighted to see you.”  
  
A weight settled in Neville’s chest as he and Gran fell in behind the Healer. Even though the lighting was magic made, there was something frightening about its enhanced brightness. The entirety of St Mungo’s was somewhere between a Muggle horror film and a macabre scientist’s lair. The floors and walls were too clean, and they made your shoes squeak ominously no matter how quietly you tried to walk on them. All the reminders charmed to the walls—Wash Your Hands—Mind Your Wand—Is That The RIGHT Potion?—made his stomach churn with dread. What if someone gave his parents the wrong potion? What if they tried the wrong charm? What if one day he and his grandmother came to visit, and his parents had disappeared completely?  
  
He hated to admit this, even to himself, but there was a part of him that wished that one day he would come to visit and his parents _would_ be gone. When he’d been younger, he used to hope that _this_ would be the time when his parents would be better. _This_ would be the time that they would recognize him, and hug him, and call him son. But after so many disappointments, this darker wish had begun to lurk amidst his hopeful dreams, and he dreaded the day that it would swallow them whole.  
  
He almost preferred the times that they fought him. Sometimes, when he and Gran came to visit, his parents would be agitated; yelling and spitting and swearing. It was those times that Neville thought he actually saw a little of what they used to be like. And even though his Gran would usher him away as quickly as possible when his parents were in those hostile moods, he would wish to stay, to see the flash of fire that had made them the feared and respected Aurors everyone said they had been. Anything was better than witnessing them as they usually were—lost, confused children in adult bodies, asking him over and over again which way the wind was blowing; and if the moon was up yet, even in the middle of the day.  
  
“Ah, here we are. Hello, Alice! Hello, Frank! You’ve some visitors,” Healer Vale said when they reached the beds nearest the windows at the back of the long room. “Augusta and Neville are here to see you.”  
  
“Frank, you’re looking fine today,” Gran said in a false-bright tone that Neville hated. “Alice, how well you look. Frank, come sit with me, I want to tell you all the news.”  
  
“News, shoes,” Frank said in a little sing-song as he allowed his mother to lead him away to a pair of cozy chairs by the window. Soon Gran was involved in an unending stream of chatter that Frank interrupted periodically with more nonsense rhymes. Neville didn’t understand how his grandmother could stand to hear them—they made him want to scream and throw things.  
  
“Hullo, Mum,” he said dully as he turned to his mother.  
  
Alice was wearing hospital issued robes several sizes too large for her, which gave her the look of a child playing a sorry game of dress-up. Her dark hair was cropped close to her head because she tended to pull out handfuls of it when she was upset if the Healers let it grow any longer. She held a wad of crumpled parchment clutched in her fist, and her cornflower blue eyes were unnervingly bright today, as though she’d been crying.  
  
She said nothing when he addressed her, but then she almost never talked. She did join him when he sat down on her bed. They never sat in chairs together. In fact, Alice refused to sit in a chair at all. He’d overheard his grandmother say that when Alice was first recovering, the mere sight of a chair would send her into hysterics for hours. He’d never asked what exactly had happened to cause this fear of chairs, and he wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that he didn’t know. His imagination had run rampant, exploring all sorts of dark corners as he pictured what Bellatrix Lestrange had done to his parents. Sometimes he thought that what he’d dreamed up was surely worse than anything she had actually done—but sometimes he would hear snatches of stories that his grandmother and her friends shared late in the evenings when they thought he was in bed, and he would change his mind. Bellatrix Lestrange was surely one of the most evil creatures ever to walk the earth, and the tales of her depravity gave him nightmares.  
  
Honestly, he’d been almost glad that Professor Snape was his boggart when they’d studied them in DADA class the year before. If the Lestrange Demon had been the one to walk out of that cabinet, he knew that no number of vulture hats would possibly help him laugh at her. She was a beast and he shoved her down to the back of his mind as best he could.  
  
“Did you have a nice breakfast Mum?” he asked, watching his mother with a nauseating mixture of longing, despair, anger, and disappointment that never failed to make him feel guilty, no matter how many times he experienced it.   
  
She ignored his words, or seemed to. She’d dropped her crumpled parchment, and she was walking her fingers across the quilted blanket, following the patterns on it. It was a handsome thing, made by Gran and her friends during their sewing circle gossips. Each square depicted a nature scene—flowers and animals, mountains and forest paths, all swaying gently in a quiet breeze. Alice liked to walk her fingers across it as though they were going on an adventure, and Neville often wondered where she was going in her mind as her fingers traveled over the fabric.  
  
“We had bagels and tea this morning before we came down. But we’re going to stop into Diagon Alley for lunch before we leave.”  
  
His mother started hopping her fingers from rock to rock, and her lips parted slightly, allowing a bit of spittle to roll over her chin. Neville took out his pocket handkerchief—he never forgot his handkerchief when they came to visit here—and gently wiped his mother’s mouth. She jerked her head away and glared at him for a moment, but soon her irritation passed, and she went back to hopping her fingers through the fabric meadows.  
  
They were silent for awhile, and Neville had to make a point of shutting out Gran’s prattling. He loved his grandmother, of course, but when she came here her voice was too loud, her words too fast, and they made his stomach churn to hear them. He also hated trying to hold up a one sided conversation with his mother; but he kept talking so he wouldn’t have to listen to Gran’s voice.   
  
“It’s going to be pretty hot today, so maybe Gran will let us have ice cream even though she usually doesn’t let me have any sugar.”   
  
Something about this upset his mother, and she started crying, soft hiccupy sobs that began without warning.   
  
“Oh, don’t cry Mum, it’s alright. I’ll talk about something else. Um…” he wiped her eyes and her nose with his handkerchief again, and this time she didn’t protest. “Let me think. I’m really enjoying being in the Frog Choir, and I think I’m going to keep doing it next year. Gran wasn’t terribly happy about it, but my grades were good this year, and so she said it was alright if I kept on with it. We sang something really beautiful back after Easter, it was tricky. It was something in Latin by a Muggle composer named Rheinberger I think. I really liked how the music sounded like you were climbing up a mountain.”  
  
His mother stopped sniffling, and when he wiped her eyes a final time, she smiled at him briefly before going back to her quilt walking. Whenever she made eye contact with him like that he was so tempted to believe that she was still in there somewhere, and that someday they would get her back. Maybe if someone could go in and help her, like a knight on a quest…but he knew that this was useless hoping. How many times had he heard his Gran talk to the Healers about his parents’ case, and how many times had they said that it was basically hopeless?  
  
“I even did well in Potions, Mum,” he said, scrambling back to the safety of mindless chatter. But he thought he saw his mother glance at him shyly out of the corner of her eye, and so he kept with this subject. “There was a ghost named Mairi who helped me. She was so very nice, and she even got Peeves to help keep Professor Snape from making me too nervous during my test.”  
  
Here is mother made a strangled sound that might have been a cough—or might have been a laugh.  
  
“You should have seen it Mum! Peeves came down and was singing this really silly song, and Professor Snape tore off after him, and by the time he came back I’d finished my test. And he just passed me and sent me on to dinner. I couldn’t believe it. Mairi is really special, and so I’m going to help her too. She wants to move on, but she needs someone to do something called a pilgrimage for her. It’s sort of weird, but I’ve been reading all about them and all sorts of people go on them for all sorts of reasons. After lunch, Gran and me are going to go see Father Peter down at Saint Matilda’s and he’s going to bless us and the we’re going to walk all the way to Our Lady of Walsingham. It’ll probably take almost a week to get there, but it’ll be worth it. I don’t want to mess this up, not after all Mairi’s done for me and how long she’s been stuck at Hogwarts without her husband or her babies.”  
  
His mother made another one of those sounds, and he couldn’t stop how they made his heart leap. Any sign that she knew him or understood him made him so happy that it hurt.  
  
“I’ll come back and tell you all about it if you like. If it won’t make you too tired.”  
  
“Well, that’s enough for one day, don’t you think, Alice?” said Gran.   
  
She was leading Frank by the hand and she wrapped an arm around Alice, giving her a firm kiss. Neville could see his mother struggling, and he knew that she didn’t like to be touched that way, but Gran never seemed to notice. Alice flailed her arms, protesting the unwanted embrace, and knocking her wad of parchment to the floor in the struggle. She started wailing immediately; large crocodile tears running red tracks down her drawn cheeks. Gran pulled back from her enraged daughter-in-law, while Neville quickly scooped up the parchment wad.  
  
“It’s alright, Mum,” he said soothingly, catching her hand and pressing the parchment into it. “No harm done, it’s right here.”  
  
His mother sniffled for some time, but once the parchment was safe in her hand she retreated to the bed, her knees tucked up under her chin, and her arms wrapped protectively around her prize.  
  
“Goodbye Dad. Bye Mum. We’ll see you when we get back from the pilgrimage,” he said, giving his father a brief hug under his Gran’s watchful eyes. His father was busy counting all the tiles in the ceiling though, and did not seem to notice.  
  
When Neville reached the door, he heard his mother’s wail. She shuffled to him, her gait lopsided, her eyes wide and desperate.  
  
“What is it, Mum?” he asked.  
  
“We have to be going now, Alice, dear,” Gran said sternly. “We’ve had a nice visit and we’ll see you as soon as we can.”  
  
Alice brushed past the other woman as though she weren’t there. She snatched Neville’s hand with her cold fingers and shoved the parchment into it. Then she raised her hand, and he thought for a moment she was going to pat his cheek. Their eyes locked and maybe—just maybe—for an instant she knew who he was. But then the moment was over, and she never did cup his cheek before she shuffled away and dropped onto her bed like one exhausted.  
  
Neville’s mother often gave him bits of parchment or lint. Gran had coached him to make a fuss over the trash while his mother could see, but she would throw the things away as soon as they were out of sight. It embarrassed him that these were the only marks of his mother’s affection that he had to his name—but they were hers, and they were the only thing she had to give.  
  
Today he shoved the gift deep in his pocket so that his Gran couldn’t steal it. He knew it was a token from his lady, given to bring him good fortune on the journey ahead.  
  
*****  
  
“Now, Neville, I know you wanted ice cream, but we’ve a long walk ahead of us, and it being so hot out, I don’t need you getting stomach cramps from the cold and the sugar,” Gran was saying as they stepped out of the alley and up the stairs of Saint Matilda’s.   
  
“It’s fine, Gran, really,” Neville protested as he tried to settle his stomach from the side-along Apparition. They hadn’t officially set out on their journey, and he hadn’t thought it worth fighting with Gran over walking yet.  
  
“I’m glad to know you see reason about some things at least.”  
  
The church was tidy and snug, unassuming as it sat overshadowed by taller and newer buildings. But upon closer inspection, there were many fine details that spoke to St Matilda's dignity. The stone was well worn by the feet of worshipers and seekers. The finely carved statues in all of the niches had faces marked with personality. The main door was guarded by a green copper door-knocker shaped like a half-breed monster with an enormous ring hanging from its mouth. The face of the metal creature hypnotized Neville, and though Gran was still complaining about the journey ahead, he heard her voice dimly, as so many flies. When he grasped the ring to pull open the door, a warm jolt of energy went up his arm, and for a moment he swore he was wearing a gauntlet. But then he blinked, and it was just his unadorned hand holding onto the tarnished metal in the hot summer afternoon.   
  
“Come now, Neville, open it, will you? Or do you need help?” Gran asked.  
  
“No, I’ve got it.”   
  
The door swung open easily for a thing so large, and the church was dim and cool inside. The windows were all cracked open, letting in a pleasant cross breeze that set the flames of the candles near the painted statues lining the walls dancing. Neville let his head fall back, following the arches up to the deep blue ceiling. It was decorated with golden stars, and he wondered fancifully if they ever moved during service. His Gran was still talking, in a softer voice, but he did not have the capacity to listen. A great feeling of purpose had settled on his shoulders, and he shifted nervously under the weight as he contemplated the emblematic stars.  
  
The sound of footsteps echoed in the cavernous space and an owlish priest, younger than Neville had expected, joined them at the back of the church.  
  
“Good afternoon. Mrs Longbottom, I presume?” the priest said when he reached them.  
  
“I am. And Father Peter, was it?” Gran replied, puffing herself up with an authoritative accent, regardless of the fact that she barely reached the man’s shoulder.  
  
“That’s right. And this must be Mr Neville Longbottom. I’m so glad to meet you.”  
  
“Thanks for doing this. It must seem…strange,” Neville said, wishing that his voice had not chosen this moment to crack.  
  
Father Peter was polite enough not to notice. “Strange? Not at all. I’ve led groups up that way myself more than once. It’s a fair distance, but I think you’ll find it worth the effort.”  
  
Something about the priest’s manner set Neville at ease, and he found himself beginning to return the man’s smile, when Gran seized the conversation.  
  
“I’m sure that it is unusual for _our_ kind,” Gran sniffed. “We’re not even Catholic.”  
  
“There’s good and bad in all of us,” Father Peter said, his eyes twinkling. “Why don’t you come over to Mary’s altar, and I’ll give you the blessing there. I’m sure you’re raring to go, and there’s a lovely campsite in Stratford if we get you on your way soon.”  
  
Gran muttered under her breath, and Neville tried not to listen too closely, although he did hear something about “superstition” and “nonsense.” In spite of her carping, the stillness of the church seeped into Neville’s bones, and he could feel himself relax more completely than he did anywhere.   
  
“Please kneel,” said Father Peter when he’d taken his place behind the little rail that separated the altars from the rest of the church.  
  
Neville did as he was asked, wishing that Gran would stop pacing behind him. The priest raised his hand over the boy’s head and began to read in quick, sure Latin from a little book.  
  
“ _In nomine Patris et Filli et Spiritus Sancti…_ ”  
  
The cool of the stones and the drone of the Latin washed over Neville, he let his eyes drift up to the statue before him. Mary, he knew, was Christ’s mother; and she sat here a young woman enthroned with a healthy baby boy on her knee. She was painted red and blue, and he liked the soft smile that was on her face. He felt as though she wished him well, and all the stories that his Gran used to tell him when he was small of wizard knights and their adventures over land and fen came back to him under her eyes.  
  
Near the end of the blessing, Father Peter hung a plain linen bag around Neville’s neck and handed the boy a sturdy wooden staff. He held out another to Gran, but she pretended not to notice, and Neville blushed at her rudeness. The priest did not seem to mind though, he simply set aside the rejected offereing and completed the prayers.   
  
“That’s all?” Neville asked, awkwardly copying the sign of the cross when Father Peter finished speaking.  
  
“That’s all. God go with you,” the priest replied.  
  
“Thank you Father Peter.” Neville leaned on the staff as he pushed himself up from the kneeler, and the smooth wood was sure and sturdy in his hand.  
  
“Drop me a line when you get back, if you have the time. I’d love to know how things go with you.”  
  
“I will.”  
  
The novel experience of being taken seriously by an adult gave a spring to Neville’s step, and emboldened him to dip his fingers into the font at the back of the church and cross himself once more. He was on his way now, and he had a confidence in his mission that bewildered him with its firmness.  
  
“I had no idea you were such a papist, Neville,” Gran said, deflating with one sentence what had taken the last half hour to build. “What are they teaching you at that school?”  
  
“You know what they’re teaching me, Gran,” he replied wearily.  
  
She sniffed as though she scented something foul. “Well, we’d best be getting on with it. I don’t suppose we could Apparate to the edge of the city, could we?”  
  
“No Gran,” Neville said, doing his best to sound like a confident young man rather than a whiney boy. “I’m sorry, but we have to start now.”  
  
She heaved a sigh. “I thought as much. Let’s go then.”  
  
The pace she set would have had him running to keep up with her a year ago, but he’d grown during the last term at school, and his longer legs had no trouble. The staff made its own music as it tapped against the sidewalks, and while some Muggles paused to giggle at the lanky boy and his little grandmother, Neville found he did not mind their stares in the least.   
  
No, he was like St Mungo now, on his way to the Holy Land of fulfilled dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song that Neville refers to is Angelus Domini by Joseph Gabriel Rheinberger.


	3. a bump in the road

Four days into their journey they were hot, footsore, plagued by gnats and mosquitos—and Neville was having the time of his life. As they traveled through towns and woodlands, every step felt momentous, as though it were fulfilling some greater purpose. Gran had often chided him, when he’d complained about the drudgery of schoolwork, that the repetitive tasks were all important steps up the mountain of magical proficiency that he was climbing. They might be small and tedious taken separately; but when he attained the mastery of the subjects, he would look behind him in awe at how far he’d come. The steps they took now might make his feet ache, but he’d never felt more sure of any task he’d undertaken in his life.

That evening they sat together by their little fire, finishing a dinner of ham and cheese and watching the stars take over the sky, light by twinkling light. Neville was doing his best to remember his Astronomy lessons, and though he was failing miserably, it didn’t bother him the way it usually did. 

“The mosquitos are thick as a London fog!” Gran snapped as she swatted the pests. “It’s enough to drive one mad.”

“They haven’t been so bad, Gran,” Neville said. “The charms you cast to keep them away worked for a long time.”

She pursed her lips. “I don’t think _you_ , of all people, should be criticizing my charmwork, young man.”

“I wasn’t criticizing,” he protested. 

“You might have fooled me.” She gave him a tight smile. “But I’ll let it go this time. I’m sure it’s because you’re exhausted.”

“But I wasn’t criticizing you. And I’m not tired.”

“Of course you are! And why wouldn’t you be after three days of tromping through this heat?” She extinguished the fire with crisp wand flick and arduously got up from the tree stump she’d been sitting on, as though every limb hurt. “Come now, let’s go to bed. We’ve still two more days ahead of us.”

“I’d rather look at the stars for just a little longer,” he said in a small voice.

“Neville.” 

Gran had a way of making his name sound like a curse when she was about to get really angry with him, and he decided it wasn’t worth a fight.

“I mean, you’re right Gran. We should get a good night’s sleep.”

*****

They woke to a driving rain that confined them to the tent for hours. Gran paced the small space like a moody lioness, while Neville reread _St Mungo, the Knight Pilgrim_ and did his best to ignore her. By afternoon, the rain had outlasted Gran’s patience; and they packed the tent under her insistence, getting completely drenched in the process. 

“We could wait for a while longer,” Neville suggested when he saw the sour look on his Gran’s face as they began to trudge the muddy path away from their campsite. 

She gave him a sharp look and cast a water-repelling charm over them both. “I think it’s best we get this over with as soon as possible.”

It seemed to Neville that they made very little progress over the course of the afternoon. Gran had trouble navigating the uneven terrain, and Neville had to keep reminding himself not to walk so quickly that he outstripped her. He hadn’t realized how much taller he was now than his grandmother—in his mind she towered over him—but as his longer legs continued to enable him to outpace her, he had to admit that he really had grown. He offered her his walking staff several times as the rain pelted them and their boots sank into the muddy ground. But she refused, sounding angrier each time he tired.

“This is quite some weather,” Gran said waspishly as the day wore on.

“At least it’s not as hot as yesterday,” Neville said, trying to lift her spirits.

She cast another water repelling charm, and muttered something he didn’t catch. He wisely refrained from asking her to repeat herself, and though she said nothing for the rest of the afternoon, a knot began to form in the pit of his stomach, becoming more and more uncomfortable as the rain continued to pour.

When the next morning’s dawn was still blotted out by the grim rain, Gran announced that she’d had enough.

“Neville,” she said brusquely as she quickly packed their sleeping rolls and cookware with sharp wand flicks, “We’ve gone far enough on foot. I’ve been to Lower Reeding before, and we’ll be Apparating the rest of the way.”

“But, Gran,” he began.

“No, _but Gran_ ,” she replied. “I understand that you’ve got some fanciful idea stuck in your head. Your Father suffered from them from time to time himself. But we’ve had our fun, and we’re not going to trek for two more days in this weather.”

“But, Gran…”

“No _but Gran_! I’ve made my decision, and this is what we’re going to do.”

Neville stood frozen in the corner of the tent, his book gripped in his hands. Arguing with Gran when she was in a state like this (or ever) was a useless exercise, and a cold despair that had nothing to do with the weather outside crept up his spine. But the way she’d compared him to his father rang in his ears, and he felt a courage sparking inside, oddly at ease with the despair.

“Gran, I understand if you want to go on ahead, but I’m going to keep walking,” he said quietly.

She laughed at his audacity. “No, you’re not.”

He crossed his arms and looked down at her, feeling his full height for the first time. 

“It’s the right thing for me to do.”

“Neville Francis Longbottom, you listen to me! You are not going any further on foot. Period.”

“Yes. I. Am.” 

He was beyond terrified of what Gran was going to do, and he was shocked that his voice didn’t show it. But he was not going to cheat on the last miles of this journey. Not when he’d come so far.

Her mouth worked in silent rage for a moment as she glared up at him. “If you continue on foot, you’ll do it without me. And without magic because you’re underage!”

“Fine. Then that’s what I’ll do.” 

This was beginning to feel like the night he’d stood up to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. He wondered if Gran was going to petrify him and drag him home by his ear.

“Fine!” she said suddenly, throwing up her hands in disgust. “Go on, then. Go on all by yourself and see how you do. After all my years of devotion, I’d expected better from you, young man.”

“I’m sorry, Gran,” he said earnestly. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

“You’re trying to do the fool thing, is what you’re doing. But you go your own way, and see where it gets you.” She dug a galleon out of her purse and slapped it into his hand. “Take this. When you get lost and exhausted you use that to tell me, and I’ll come get you.”

“Thank you. I’ll use it when I get to the church.”

“We’ll see about that.” She snatched her vulture trimmed hat, and the creature had the gall to wink at him.

“Good-bye, Gran. I love you,” Neville said remorsefully, but he couldn’t change his mind.

She snorted and went out into the rain. There was a loud crack, and he knew she was gone. He glanced around the tent as the weight of what he’d just done settled on his shoulders, crushing the air from his lungs. Then he straightened them, and started to pack.

*****

It took him more than an hour to wrestle the tent and all the equipment into their pouches. Thankfully the magic had been charmed into the objects themselves, and he was able to manipulate them without having to cast a single spell. By the time he finished this task, the rain had slowed to a drizzle, and by the end of the morning it had burned away completely. The day was lonely, and his initial burst of confidence was chipped away with every step he took. He didn’t blame Gran for not understanding his quest, and as day descended into night, he began to wonder if she’d perhaps been right after all.

He sat up for a long time that night, reading _St Mungo_ and staring through the tent’s skylight at the stars overhead. It was frightening to be alone in a strange place, and once or twice he was excruciatingly tempted to take the coin from his pocket and call Gran to admit defeat. Only the conviction that he was doing the right thing stayed his hand.

He read and counted stars for much of the night; and when sleep came to him, it was the deep and dreamless sleep of the just.


	4. weep, weep, o walsingham

Neville stumbled into Houghton St Giles a day later than he’d planned and tired to the bone. It was a sweet sort of exhaustion—the kind that comes after work well done. His pace had slowed to an ambling stroll, giving him plenty of time to see the families at their dinners as he passed the snug rows of houses. There was something about this mundane rite that cheered him as he approached the end of his journey. He had only a mile left to go; and he expected that he would spend the night in his own bed, reconciled to his Gran at last. She would likely still be angry when he called her to meet him; but he knew that if there was one thing that Gran appreciated, it was boldness. Surely when she saw him, standing tall in the church with the long miles behind him and Mairi set free from her earthly prison, his Gran would smile and tousle his hair, and take him home for dinner and rest. What a story it would be for her to tell, too! _That’s my Neville_ she’d _say,_ _walked all the way from London to Walsingham. A hundred miles if it’s an inch! And by himself too, would you believe it?_

The sliver of a moon was arcing down towards the horizon as Neville finally approached the little slipper chapel that was his first destination. The wide green field spread out before him as he passed beneath the ruined archway. There was a large, squat building with a roof so new that it gleamed in the lamplight, but this was of no interest to him. He came in search of the crumbling stone facade and the old stained glass, and he found it tucked away on a footpath, waiting for him. He’d read all about the chapel’s history; how centuries of pilgrims had stopped here to remove their shoes and walk the final mile to Little Walsingham barefoot. Even Henry the Eighth himself had performed this act of humility, and Neville intended to do the same. It was a little miracle of its own that the chapel had been restored to its proper use. For many years it had been used as a barn, until one stubborn woman had seen its true nature and lovingly coaxed it back to life. 

He approached the old wooden door and tried to tug it open, only to find that it was locked tight. He struggled with it for a time, before abandoning it to search for another entrance, but every door and window was barred. This small disappointment destroyed his confidence in a way that nothing else had managed, and he paced uncertainly around the building, wondering what he should do. Eventually he simply settled against one of the stone walls to wait.

It was a long and terrible night, and he was assailed by doubts on every side. When he was not busy telling himself what an idiot he was to have undertaken this journey, he was jumping at noises in the darkness. Every shadow and scratch was a Muggle Auror—or worse—one of the Death Eaters that Harry’d seen in the graveyard with You-Know-Who. No, Voldemort. It made Neville shudder even to think that iniquitous name, but Harry, Dumbledore, and Mairi all insisted that calling something by its name helped you be less afraid of it, and so he tried. Eventually he nodded off, and he dreamed of churchyards, and of Cedric Diggory laid out in his coffin.

“Young man, what on earth are you doing here?” 

Neville started awake and blinked up into the harshly lined face of an old man in what looked like dress robes. The man’s bearing and expression reminded the boy uncomfortably of Professor Snape, and it took him a moment to realize that the fellow was more likely a Muggle priest like Father Peter than a disgruntled wizard. 

“I wanted to go into the chapel, but it was locked,” Neville explained, his voice thick with sleep and nerves.

The priest grunted. “Where are your parents?”

“I live with my grandmother,” Neville said. “We were walking from London, but she…needed a break, so I finished on my own.”

“You walked here from London by yourself?” The priest did not look impressed.

“Not all by myself. Just the last few days. Gran’s going to meet me at Our Lady of Walsingham later today.”

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen today, sir.” Neville was beginning to fear that he was about to get into real trouble. Who knew what would happen if he were turned over to the Muggle Aurors? “Do you know Father Peter? He’s the one who saw me and Gran off.”

“I do know him.” The priest’s frown darkened, and though Neville cringed inwardly, he did his best not to show it. At last the priest shrugged and added, “No concern of mine, but I’d better not catch you knocking over the stones on your way out.”

“No, sir. I won’t, sir.”

The priest grunted and went off to open the chapel. Neville’s heart began to pound as he approached, wondering what would meet him inside. His eyes were dry and bleary from lack of sleep, and they started to water as he went from the brightness of the dawn to the dim interior of the church. The old excitement grew as his eyes adjusted to the low light. He was standing in a holy place now; or so he’d read.

The inside was…disappointing. A cramped space with uneven floors and little beauty greeted him. There was nowhere to sit, and he stood awkwardly in the middle of the room while the priest prepared the sparse altar for Mass. A statue of the lady Mary and her little Son was placed near the front of the room, but it sat beneath a veil of shadows, and Neville did not want to anger the priest by getting too close to him. As the old man began to mutter the prayers of the service under his breath, Neville nervously paced the floor, unable to be quiet or still.

At length the service ended, and Neville finally had the chance to see the little statue better. Lady Mary and her Son were painted in rich colors, too fine for the dinginess of the chapel that housed them. They seemed gentle, and almost alive in a way that the rest of the room felt dead to him. He knelt before the statue to remove his shoes and socks, and left them behind the pedestal that held the image. Then he hurried out of the chapel before his doubts had a chance to overwhelm him.

The morning that had been so clear had been replaced by a slate sky that split almost the instant that he stepped out of the chapel. He was drenched before he’d reached the road, but he made no effort to shield even his face from the downpour. Step after sodden step he trudged towards little Walsingham, fully aware of how stupid he looked. How his classmates would laugh if they could see him now. He could almost hear it.

 _Look what Neville’s gone and done!_ Draco would say. _Walking barefoot through the rain like Muggle trash. All Hail Neville Longbottom—King of the Fools!_

The last quarter mile seemed to stretch longer than all the many miles before it. Neville’s hair was in his eyes, his breath came in painful gasps, his feet were bruised and covered in mud. But all of these physical hurts were dwarfed by the pain in his heart; for he knew that what he was doing now was a useless waste. As the church of Our Lady rose up before him (proud and clean—much grander than her humble sister a mile back) he was tired to the bone. A bitter embarrassment twisted inside him. How could he not have known how disappointing this would all be in the end?

He dragged himself into the vestibule of the church, leaving muddy tracks on the gleaming floor. There was an emptiness inside this anteroom that reminded him of St Mungo’s—sterile, lifeless, and cold. There was no Gran waiting to pat his hand and say _good show_ in that tight voice she used when she was holding back tears. There was no Mairi to thank him for his troubles. There was only a room as empty as he was. A long, low bench sat along one of the white walls. He plopped down on it and put his head in his hands.

What had he been thinking? Sure, he’d been to Mass before—the choir at school took turns singing for all the religious services that would have them—but he wasn’t a Catholic by any means. What was he doing here, in this Muggle church, charged with praying for the soul of a Muggle ghost? Who did he think he was to address God, when he wasn’t even sure if God existed? If a man like Voldemort could roam the face of the earth, cutting down children before they had a chance to live—where was God? If a woman like Bellatrix Lestrange could exult in the kind of sadistic cruelty that drove his parents to insanity—where was God? If his own grandmother could abandon him in the rain, leaving him to his fate—where was God? And where was God when he cried himself to sleep at night, alone, friendless, and forgotten?

He cried now too; sitting in the cool clean vestibule, caked in mud and sweat, dripping dirty water onto the bright floor. He cried until he was hiccuping, thinking of his parents, and Cedric. But mostly, he cried for himself, and the empty ache inside his heart.

The outer door opened, and Neville turned his face away from the unknown intruder. Perfect. Just what he needed—another Muggle adult bent on calling a Muggle Auror after him. His arms were folded tight across his chest as he attempted to stanch the flow of his tears. This only caused his raspy sobs to echo more loudly off the domed ceiling. The intruder refused to leave, joining him on the bench as though he were there to amuse the world with his tears. But, after a time, his crying dwindled into the occasional sniffle, and as his eyes cleared he realized that it was Gran who’d come to sit with him now.

“You're here at last,” she said, handing him a crisp white handkerchief.

He took it and blew his nose loudly. “I guess I am.”

“Have you gone inside to pray yet?”

He crumpled the soiled linen angrily in his fist. “No. I’m not going in. Let’s just go home.”

The words of his defeat hung heavy in the air, and he would have braced himself for the inevitable _I told you so_ , but he lacked the strength. 

“Neville,” she said at last, “I’m proud of you for coming all this way. I think it would be a shame for you to quit now.”

All his life he’d longed to hear those words from her, but hearing them gave him no pleasure.

“You shouldn’t be proud. The whole thing was stupid. I should’ve stayed in London like you wanted me to in the first place.”

“It might’ve saved me a few miles on my feet if you had. What’s changed your mind?”

The last thing he needed right now was Gran to laugh at him. 

“I get it!” he snapped, throwing the handkerchief to the floor. “It’s stupid. I’m not Catholic. I’m not religious. I don’t even know if I believe in God at all. What use are my prayers going to be? I’ll have gone through this whole ordeal, and then I’ll go back to school and Mairi will still be there. I’ll have failed and she’ll know it.”

“We’re Gryffindors, Neville. We don’t run away because we’re afraid of failure,” she said sternly.

“But it’s not going to work! Even if there is a God, He’s not listening. It’s a waste of time.”

When Gran didn’t respond, the weight of his defeat finally crushed him. One might have thought that he’d be used to failure by now, but this one hurt more than all the times he’d embarrassed himself previously combined.

“It might surprise you, but when I was a girl, I loved going to service,” Gran said hesitantly.

“I didn’t know that,” Neville muttered.

“And when your grandfather Arcturus was alive, we went every Sunday.”

He looked at her, disbelieving. He’d never known his grandmother to darken a church door.

“No, don’t talk,” she said, “or I might not get it all out. It was Arcturus dying that was the beginning of the end for me. It was the first betrayal. I did blame the trollop that cast the spell that took him (may she rot in hell) but I blamed god more. It seems to me that he’s been too busy up in his heaven to listen when I used to pray for my family to come through the war alright. Your mother and father…”

Her voice broke and tears started to run down her faded cheeks. Neville looked away quickly. He’d never seen his grandmother cry, and he wasn’t sure he liked seeing it now. She was his rock. He didn’t know if he could stand it if she revealed herself to be a regular human being like everyone else.

“Your parents,” she continued valiantly. “What happened to them shouldn’t have happened to anybody. And the more the Healers tried to help them, the angrier I got. But it was god I was angry with—not them. They were doing everything they could, and if he couldn’t be bothered to produce even a little miracle so that you might grow up with proper parents instead of your crotchety old grandmother—well, then I couldn’t be bothered with _him_.”

“You’ve raised me fine, Gran” Neville said.

“You’re a fine lad, Neville, that’s for certain. But I sometimes think it’s in spite of my efforts rather than because of them.”

He threw his arms around her, forgetting for a moment that he was still soaked and muddy from the road. She didn’t seem to mind, returning his embrace fiercely.

“I don’t know how any of this really works,” she said when he released her, “but I do know that you, Neville Longbottom, made a promise. And I know that you are the sort of young man who keeps his promises. Maybe it won’t have the effect you’re hoping it will have; but you’re going back to Hogwarts in the fall, whether you go into that church or no. You’ll have to decide for yourself if you want to tell Mairi that you tried and failed, or if you want to tell her that you went home without finishing the task.”

He put a hand in his shirt pocket and touched the carefully folded piece of parchment that his mother had given him at the start of the journey. Before Gran had even finished speaking, he knew his answer.

“I want to finish,” he said. “But will you come with me?”

“With all my heart.”

His body was still tired and sore, but it was no longer ponderous. The doubt had been lifted, even if he didn’t know what to expect. It was the doing that was important now. Maybe the doing was all that was ever important. 

“Let’s go,” he said.

They stood up from the bench, the lad and the witch. Before this, Gran would have led the way, but now she held back, and let him set the pace. The door to the inner church waited patiently for them, as it had for many other pilgrims before, and would wait for many after.

Neville took a deep breath, and pushed it open.


	5. secundum magnam misericordiam tuam

The sun was already set by the time that Neville and his Gran returned to St. Mungo’s later that day. He’d had a long bath and a longer nap; followed by a birthday dinner at Florian Fortescue’s complete with a towering spiral of ice cream cake. Gran had suggested that perhaps they’d done enough for one day, but Neville was firm in his wish to see his parents before retiring for the night. The ward was quiet this evening, and the harsh lights were dimmed as the residents readied themselves for bed. Neville held an awkwardly sized bag in his arms, which he tried not to drop as he stepped over the cracks in the tile. His father was sitting at a little table, stacking up gobstones and sighing whenever they fell over, and he and Gran went to join him there.

“Hello, Frank, here we are again,” Gran said. Her voice sounded real tonight, and though it was painful, it did Neville good to hear.

“I brought you a piece of cake, Dad,” Neville said, sitting the bag on the table. He pulled out a carefully wrapped slice, and set it in front of his father. “It’s my birthday and I thought you might like to have it.”

“Birthday, come stay,” Frank said. 

Frank hesitated, but then snatched up the spoon and started to eat with gusto. Gran patiently wiped his chin and replied to his rhymes as though she understood them. As far as Neville could tell, his father was pleased with the treat, and he went in search of his mother to see if she might be persuaded to eat her piece as well. He knew his mother ate sporadically, and he was bracing himself for that possibility tonight.

He found her sitting on the bench by the window, looking out over the street below. It was mostly dark, but the lamps outside decorated the blackness with their warm light. He sat down next to her, careful to give her plenty of space. She was fidgeting with her robes as though they itched her.

“I’m back Mum,” Neville said gently. “I made it all the way up to Walsingham and did what I meant to do. I don’t know if it worked, but I guess I’ll find out when I go back to school. It wasn’t like I thought it was going to be, but I feel okay about it now. I’m not really sure what I expected it to be like, but I did my best.”

His mother muttered a string of garbled syllables that he didn’t understand, and he knew better than to ask her to repeat herself. 

“I brought you something too,” he said, pulling a small package out of the bag that Father Peter had given him at the start of the journey. “It’s a picture of Lady Mary and her baby. They looked so nice together, that I thought you might like to see it sometimes.”

He unwrapped the parcel and hung a little work of stained glass in the window, but it was too dark outside to see it properly.

“When it’s light out you’ll be able to see it. She has a nice smile,” Neville explained apologetically.

For a long time, his mother sat there, staring down at her robes. He wished that he could understand what she was thinking. He wished that he could take her home with him. He wished that they could be a normal family. And somewhere in the midst of all this wishing, she looked up at him and smiled—really smiled.

“I love you, Mum,” he said.

She took his hand limply in hers and gave it a weak squeeze. Then she snatched her hand back and started to fidget with her robes again.

“I brought you a piece of cake too, if you want it.” Neville was trying not to cry again. “It’s my birthday, you know.”

He pulled the second piece of cake out of the bag and set it on the bench between them. And though he’d tried to tell himself that it wouldn’t matter to him if she touched it or not—when she did pick up the spoon and start to eat—his heart felt like it was full of light.

*****

On September first of his fifth year at Hogwarts, Neville spent the whole of the opening feast impatiently waiting for it to end. He barely noticed the taste of the food or the names of the first-year students being sorted. He didn’t pay attention to any of the new DADA professor’s speeches (although he did notice how absurdly pink her robes were). The instant they were released to their dormitories, he was off, climbing the stairs two at a time, and passing by the Fat Lady’s portrait on his way to Mairi’s chapel. 

At first he was worried that the entrance might have moved over the summer, and he might not be able to find it. But as he approached the end of the narrow stairwell, it was waiting for him, wide open and dark. He slowed his step as he passed through the doorway, not wanting to disturb the stillness inside.

“Mairi?” he asked the stagnant air. 

No answer came, and he trepidatiously began to hope that he’d succeeded, when a blast of icy wind and an unearthly wail burst through the ceiling, descending on him like a demon of vengeance.

“It’s all your fault!” cried Peeves, pelting Neville with clods of mud.

Neville raised his arms to defend himself. “I’ve only been back for an hour, I can’t have done anything!”

“You have, you have, you have!” the ghost insisted. “You’ve made Peevesy very angry and now you’ll payeee!”

Peeves was out of mud to sling, and he flew circles around Neville, shrieking and boxing the boy’s ears.

“What do you think I did?” Neville demanded. “If you tell me what it is, then maybe I can fix it.”

“Can’t _never_ be fixed! She’s _gone_!”

“Gone?”

“Gone, gone, gone!” Peeves flew up to perch on one of the rafters and started shaking with ghostly sobs.

“Do you mean Mairi?” Neville asked slowly. “Did it work? Did she move on?”

“Yes!” Peeves moaned. “She’s left and she’ll _never_ come back!”

Neville was used to experiencing a measure of sadness and with all of his joys, but in this moment the intensity knocked the wind out of him.

“Peeves, it’s what she wanted,” Neville said, trying to remind himself as much as the ghost.

“But I miss her,” Peeves said pitifully.

“I miss her too.” Neville hadn’t realized until that moment how true those words were. He’d been so focused on saving Mairi, that he hadn’t stopped to think what life was going to be like without her.

“And who will read to me?”

The sight of Peeves, the Hogwarts menace, crying crocodile tears over losing his only friend moved Neville enough to put his own hurt aside for now. In spite of the various humiliations he’d suffered at the ghost’s hands over the years, he didn’t feel right leaving him this way. 

“Come down, and I’ll read to you,” Neville said, sitting down on floor and pulling a book out of his robes.

“You will?” Peeves sounded suspicious.

“I’ve a book right here. See?” 

Without waiting for Peeves to argue or sob, he opened the book and started to read. Soon the ghost drifted down from the rafters to hover near him, and Neville thought that it was good to spend an evening with one of the only other beings in the castle who could appreciate his loss. He was happy that Mairi was finally at peace, and he was sad that she was gone. The sadness didn’t seem to tarnish his victory, though—it only made it seem somehow brighter. 

“ _The saint, he was a sinner sure,_  
 _Long may his story here endure._  
 _Sir Mungo was a knight full brave,_  
 _But laid down the sword, his soul to save…_ ”

Neville read and read late into the night, until even Peeves was too tired to listen any longer. And though the grand events of the years that followed overshadowed these smaller ones, the Boy Who Also Lived never forgot them—nor were they forgotten by those who loved him. In later days, they were even repaid by a miracle (whether it was little or big would depend upon whom you asked).

But that is another story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I modeled the verse about St Mungo on the beginning of Éric and Énide by Chrétien De Troyes (1130-1191).
> 
> Walsingham is a real place, and the details about the slipper chapel and the tradition of walking the last mile barefoot are all true.
> 
> The story title, and the first, second, and last chapter titles are from Savonarola's Infelix Ego.
> 
> The title of chapter four is taken from the annoymous poem A Lament for Our Lady's Shrine at Walsingham. The poem was written after the shrine was destroyed under Henry VIII.


End file.
